


How to Rule the World

by queenlua



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25332391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlua/pseuds/queenlua
Summary: Uniting Fódlan isn't as easy as Claude had hoped.  He has a chat with the person who managed it before.Postgame, Verdant Wind.
Relationships: Claude von Riegan & Rhea
Comments: 26
Kudos: 60





	How to Rule the World

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of [The Master Tactician](https://twitter.com/claude_zine), a Claude fanzine!
> 
> Thanks to airlock for the beta.

Claude thought he had changed the world, the day he first led his Immortal Corps across Fódlan’s Locket.

The scene had been like something from the old tales, from The Book of Kings. It was a few months after the war had ended, during high summer, when the stubborn last warriors of Agartha had rallied themselves, and marched their bloody path toward Fódlan’s new capital. Queen Byleth had stood with the ragged remnants of her army, and as the rebels pressed towards the walls of Derdriu, she braced herself for one final stand—

—and then in flew Claude, dressed in full glory, flinging arrows with the strength of a wind god. Two dozen Almyran warriors flew in fast behind him, their swords glinting in the sunlight, and together they routed the rebels in under an hour, saved Derdriu, saved all of Fódlan. Afterwards, Claude had glided next to Byleth with a little smirk: “Missed me?”

The night after that battle, Claude had drunk too much and sung too loudly with his comrades-in-arms, and he’d stared up at the crescent moon gleaming in the sky, and he’d thought to himself: here, my world begins at last.

Gods, he really _had_ thought that, hadn’t he?

That had been over a year ago. And instead of breaking down borders, Claude found himself flying with his corps over Fódlan once more, in the dead of winter, through a driving snow, hunting for rebels like so many vermin.

If only, Claude thought, it weren’t so damn _cold_. Almyran wyverns weren’t built for Fódlan winters—particularly not when they’d been flying against the wind all morning. Some of their wyverns were starting to list in the air, they all needed a break, and they were still nowhere _near_ the waypoint—

But hey, Claude thought wryly, when he saw Garreg Mach’s battered spires rising in the distance. Maybe he could at least get a visit to his alma mater out of all of this.

“Let’s land,” Claude shouted over the wind, and together, the corps spiraled down—flying slowly, so as not to startle, and waving their Crest of Flames banners, so as not to be shot down. You couldn’t be too careful, these days. A small crowd scattered from the gates to greet them, and Claude was gratified to see a harried-yet-cheerful Alois standing among them.

As soon as Claude dismounted, Alois clapped him on the shoulder and pulled him into a bearish hug: “If it isn’t Claude von Reigan! Fancy seeing you here.”

Claude, abashed, wriggled away, and fixed the hair that Alois had mussed. He could hear one of his corpsmen snickering behind him.

“Weren’t you off being a king in Almyra?”

“I sure was,” Claude said, with a smile. “Still am. But I couldn’t leave Byleth to twist in the wind, with all the rebels attacking lately. And I couldn’t let Almyra’s most elite wyvern corps fly without me, so. Here I am.”

“Ah, right right,” Alois said, as if it all made sense now—and then he tilted his head, because it didn’t. “I thought you fended off those ruffians at Derdriu a _year_ ago.”

Claude sighed. “Apparently their little friends are exceptionally motivated. We’re still rooting the last of them out.”

Alois frowned.

Which didn’t feel right at all. So Claude tacked on his best devil-may-care grin: “Hey, no one said reconstruction was going to be easy. And Almyra can get on without me for a while.”

Which was _almost_ true. If anyone could manage Almyra without him, it was Nader. But the situation with that warlord in the north hadn’t exactly been _stable_ when Claude left, and his cousin Vistasp had been nipping as his heels, and the letters he’d been getting from Nader were strangely terse and grim, and _really_ he needed to be home, not here—

But there was no point getting lost in his own head, Claude told himself firmly, not right now. _Focus._ “Mind if we stop and warm up for a bit?” Claude asked, but already, the Knights of Seiros were rushing to assist his crew, unsaddling wyverns and guiding them to the stables. Apparently, he didn’t need to ask.

So together, Claude and Alois walked together to the equipment shed, where Claude hung Failnaught and kicked the snow off his boots, while Alois chattered on: “There’s still plenty of lunch left for all of you. And if you’d like to stay the night, we can ready some dorms in a hurry—”

“Just lunch and supplies are plenty, thanks.” Claude glanced through the crowd as they walked. Someone was missing: “How’s Rhea these days?”

He didn’t mean to put Alois on the spot, but Alois started sputtering. “Er, well, I mean, ah. The church, you know.” He cleared his throat. “We’re hanging in there. Rebuilding. That war really did a number on us, especially in the Empire—half the churches there got razed to the ground. And when word got out about who Rhea was, even more people left the church, but...”

“Right,” Claude said, with a gentle smile. “I knew about all that. What I meant was, how is _she_ doing?”

“Oh! She’s well. Better than the last time you saw her, certainly. She delegates her duties more, nowadays, but well, she used to run _everything!_ Our archbishop has earned a break. And now that Byleth has taken over running the _political_ side of things, it’s easier to focus on...” Alois looked stricken for a moment. “Of course, Rhea did a splendid job, but Byleth is _also_ doing a good job, I’m sure, just...”

Claude waited for him to finish. Then, when he didn't: "I'm glad to hear she's well."

“Yes,” Alois replied, with obvious relief.

Now they were standing in the shadow of Garreg Mach’s largest steeple, or rather, what had once been its largest steeple. Claude supposed that the top had been broken off and never repaired, during the last Agarthan attack. A huge crack ran down the side of the building. 

Alois stared at it with something like longing. “I’d like to get it looking like it once did, someday.”

Claude kicked a little pebble on the ground. He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

Luckily, just then, a page tapped Alois on the shoulder, with some urgent bit of business. Alois offered a hurried excuse, leaving Claude free to rejoin his compatriots.

Lunch in the dining hall was a hurried affair—and an unusually hushed one. Normally, Claude’s corpsmen would be elbowing each other and telling jokes as they ate, but today, they only greeted him with a murmur. Claude noticed them staring at the vaulted ceilings with something like awe, and staring at the dappled light that the stained glass cast across the table, staring everywhere—ah, he realized. Most of them had never been in a Seiros church before. And something warm leapt into Claude’s throat, at that—the memory of his own first time here, and his dream of others coming here—his worlds coming closer together, bit by bit—

But then the captain barked, “We strike for the skies soon,” and the quiet was broken, as the corpsmen collectively yelped, and rushed to swallow their last few bites. Next time, Claude thought, next time they’d stay for longer. While the captain marshalled them, Claude slipped back out to the equipment shed, threw on his cloak, buttoned up, turned around—

–and found himself staring straight at Rhea.

How did she manage to look _exactly_ the same? Claude wondered for a moment, before he remembered: right, dragons. “Didn’t know you were around today, archbishop.”

Rhea smiled. “I only just received word that you were here. And there’s no need for formalities, Claude. You can call me Rhea.”

Claude scratched the back of his neck. “Sure thing, Rhea.”

“And what has brought you back to Garreg Mach?”

“We’re just passing through.” Claude could hear the corps’s wyverns grunting and calling, somewhere on the other side of the building. They must be almost ready to go. “I wish we could stay for longer, but...”

“Of course. I don’t mean to keep you.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He and Rhea had never been close, exactly, and the last time he had seen her, she had been in such a sorry state that... well, he hadn’t expected her to survive. She’d told him her whole life story, then. All those years of secrets. All those years of hurt.

It felt a bit awkward, trying to follow _that_ up with small talk. So Claude opted not to try. He gave Rhea his best parting smile, and turned back to his equipment. As he lifted Failnaught from the hook where it hung, he could feel Rhea’s eyes pressing on him from behind—and he remembered who she was, and what Failnaught was, and he balked.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t need it.” And he meant it. He had hoped, after that battle with Nemesis, that he’d hung up this bow for the last time—but, well. The thing hadn’t even had a chance to gather dust. “Gods,” he breathed, “you must... you must hate these things.”

Rhea said nothing, just watched, her expression inscrutable. Then: “It’s been a long time since they were made, Claude. I am used to it.”

Claude wondered how long it would take _him_ to get used to handling the Relics, if they were made from the corpses of people he knew. If his bow were made of—Hilda’s bones, or his mother’s. Gods. He slung the bow quickly over his shoulder, and forced the thought out of his mind. He’d been using this bow for a long time. It was a good bow, a very good bow.

“Where _are_ you heading?” Rhea asked at last.

“There’s unrest in Magdred. More of the Agarthans. I swear, they’re like rabbits. Kill one and four more pop up.”

“Ah.” Rhea tilted her head with interest. “I had heard the most recent trouble was in Ordelia, not Magdred.”

Claude sighed. “There’s rebels _there_ , too. But Hilda’s taking care of those.” He’d dragged her out of retirement for that. She hadn’t been happy with him, and well. Claude wasn’t happy, either. But he needed soldiers right now, and Hilda was one of the best.

Claude waited for another question. But Rhea said nothing more. And the longer she stood there, the heavier the bow slung over his back felt. He should get moving.

So Claude stepped just outside, where his wyvern was waiting. He saddled and bridled him, and threw some last odds and ends in a saddlebag. Every so often he turned his head, because it felt so much like Rhea was about to say something, but no. She never did. And then he realized, it wasn’t Rhea who wanted to say something—it was _him_.

“Rhea.” His lips were chapped from the cold, and his voice was huskier than he’d like. “How did you do it?”

Rhea tilted her head. “What do you mean, Claude?”

“I mean all of Fódlan’s finally under one ruler, there’s plenty of rebuilding that _should_ be keeping people busy, and yet there’s still all this...” Claude gestured to the west, and the east: unrest every which way. “I thought _I_ was good at stirring up petty fights, but it turns out the people of Fódlan can _really_ outdo me when they’re not all busy fending off the Empire.”

Rhea’s lips twitched unpleasantly, like a dark shadow passing beneath the surface of a calm pool. It would be easier to leave, Claude thought. It would be kinder. But he wanted to know.

He took a long breath to steady himself. “There were six centuries of peace before Faerghus split off from the Empire. I mean, gods, that’s really something.” He let out a sigh, his breath misting the air. “So, I’m asking. How did you do it? How did you hold all that together?”

Rhea’s expression was placid again, but the set of her shoulders suggested hesitancy. “Claude, I am not sure I should... I stepped away from all that.”

“I know you did. But see, I’m new to this gig. Couldn’t you give me a few pointers? Old guard to new?”

She kept staring at him. Claude waited. And ordinarily, Claude could outwait anyone. He’d let the silence creep in, until it became too much, and people would start blabbing their secrets, just to chase away that silence. But Rhea may as well have been a statue, for all she yielded. He waited a minute, two, five, and finally he pressed: “Help me out, just this once, and then I’ll be out of your hair. I don’t want to be putting down all these little rebellions forever, you know? It’s not as easy as I’d hoped.”

There was that twitch in her expression again, when Claude said _easy_. Not like a passing shadow, he realized—more like watching mud getting stirred up in clear water. He saw her lower her eyes, and when she raised them again, they had darkened: “It is difficult, isn’t it?” she said. “Even with just the weapons they have now, it is so _difficult_ to keep them from killing each other. Difficult to keep them from fomenting rebellion, and forming armies, and splintering their nations, their families, their homes. Now imagine if they had weapons like the Agarthans had.”

It took Claude a moment to gather her meaning. “You’re talking about those javelins of light.”

Rhea nodded. “But javelins were only the most recent and most terrible of their weapons. They made others. Imagine if... imagine if _anyone_ could spellcast, without any training at all. Imagine they could kill two, or a dozen, or dozens of people at a time, like that. They learned to make weapons like those, before they made the javelins.”

Claude could see where this was going: more rules, more prohibitions, more _thou shalt not_ s. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Okay, well. Don’t let the bandits get a hold of any javelins of light, got it. Anything else?”

Rhea stiffened. Maybe he’d sounded too flippant.

“I do not think you understand,” she said, voice cooling. “They are already well on their way. They’ll start with one of the church prohibitions that Byleth has nullified—I understand that was your idea?”

Claude hesitated. He had tried to launder that little plan through Byleth. It was better for both of them, and better for his dream, if it wasn’t _too_ obvious just how much Fódlan’s ruler heeded the Almyran king’s counsel. But if Rhea was harder to fool, well, fine. He nodded yes. “You’re talking about that flammable black water in Faerghus. The oil.”

Rhea nodded. “I presume you read the decree. So you understand why it was forbidden for so long.”

“Sure, I understood what you were trying to do,” Claude said, reaching a hand to the back of his neck. “I just disagreed with it. That stuff isn’t dangerous if you know what you’re doing. We’ve been extracting that stuff in Almyra for a couple decades, now.”

“Have you? And have the Almyrans honed their ability to make war, in that time?”

Claude laughed. “We sure don’t have any javelins of light, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And?” Rhea’s eyes flashed, like they had in the academy, a lifetime ago, when she was condemning those church rebels to death. Imperious. Certain.

Claude cringed under that gaze; he _hated_ that he cringed. “I might have a friend who’s been tinkering with it for some martial applications,” Claude said, as though Rhea were dragging every word out of him.

It wasn’t as bad as it _sounded_ , he thought to himself He knew the guy. It was just this one toy project of his. Almyra didn’t even _do_ war the Fódlandish way.

“It won’t stop with your friend,” Rhea said. Her face had softened but her voice was hard. “Even with the best of intentions, these things never stop with any one person.”

“But, Rhea,” Claude said—and his voice sounded petulant, he could hear it, and he _hated_ it, because he wasn’t a student anymore and she wasn’t a ruler. “In Almyra we use that stuff to waterproof our boats, and to light our homes. You can’t hold back all of science, just because some people may do something bad with it. At some point you’ve got to trust them, right?”

“I did trust them, Claude.”

Her voice was calm, free of rancor or old pain. But her meaning was clear.

Gods. He was an idiot. “Right,” he said. “Sorry. That was...” He searched for a strong enough word, and failed. “I mean, Zanado, that was awful. I don’t—I don’t want anything like that to happen again, ever. But even so, you’ve got to—” Claude was going out on a limb, talking faster than he could think. “I don’t think you can reshape the whole _world_ just to make it perfectly safe—”

“So what _are_ you reshaping the world for, Claude?”

“I’m just—I’m not—” Claude balked. Denial was a reflex for him, and dissembling came easily, so easily that hardly anyone ever called him on it. People knew Claude was up to _something_ , but even the most suspicious of them never guessed quite how grand Claude’s ambitions were.

Except for Rhea, it seemed.

“I’m just helping Byleth out, is all,” he finished, lamely.

Rhea offered a thin, sad smile. Like she wished it were true, and like she knew it wasn’t. 

“You asked how I did it,” she said. “That is my answer. I used those prohibitions to guide things, to steer them—to keep Fódlan from becoming too talented in the art of war. And I used the church to diffuse smaller conflicts, all these little rebellions you see springing up all over. And if a tension was too great to be borne, then I allowed one nation to split into two, and gave the new nation my blessing. That... that was all, I believe. That was all I knew to do.”

“That’s all, then?” Claude said, and a note of disdain crept into his voice despite himself. “Just that.”

“That’s all,” she answered, tired. “Claude, I never wanted to rule the world. But you—you _do_ want to rule.”

Claude met her eyes. He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t deny it, either.

Rhea nodded. “I have seen that go poorly. But I have also seen it go well. And so—maybe you’ve found another way. And if you have, I would welcome that.”

Claude wanted to say, yes. He wanted to say, I’ve got this. In his mind, he’d given the speech so many times: bust open the lid, break apart the bottle, let people flow freely from the far east of Almyra to the western tip of Adrestria. But when he tried to form the words, they tasted like ashes in his mouth. He had a plan, well. Rhea had had that, once.

He shivered. The sinking sun was causing a nearby tower to cast a long shadow over them. He should go.

“Well, uh.” Claude edged closer to his wyvern. “Those bandits won’t rout themselves.” Gods. It sounded so depressing, saying it like that. He didn’t _want_ to be routing bandits and quashing rebels. He wanted so much _more_.

But there was nothing to be done for it. He mounted Kurosh and adjusted the reins, before he realized, gods, he was being rude: “Thanks, Rhea,” he said, with feeling. “Really. For all of that.”

Rhea smiled. “Take care, Claude. And good luck.”

It was the sort of goodbye you’d say to anyone. A pleasantry, a politeness. But still, as he slapped Kurosh’s shoulder and went whirling off into the twilit sky—Claude hoped that she meant it. He was going to need all the luck he could get.


End file.
